In a reference to reports of the Conservative party chairman's former life as a get rich quick web guru, fellow panellist, poet Benjamin Zephaniah, asked him: "Are you really rich?"

"No, no," the MP replied, adding: "We're still having to work to pay the mortgage each month."

Labour MP Caroline Flint then laid into Shapps, with the mocking jibe that his alter ego was the source of the Tory slogan "vote blue, go green".

She added that it was odd that someone advising people on how to set up a business should use an assumed name.

His appearance on the show came after How To Corp, the website brand he founded, was removed from the internet, taking with it a series of potentially embarrassing details about his former life and his alter ego.

Since last week a slew of websites have disappeared, removing all traces of Michael Green's offer to make $20,000 (£12,500) in 20 days "or your money back" and details of phone lines offering expert internet marketing advice for $297 an hour.

On Monday How To Corp's website was replaced by a helpdesk offering support to existing customers, effectively ending the public's chance to download Michael Green's How to Bounce Back from Recession, or pay $497 for TrafficPaymaster, a product that the Guardian revealed broke Google's code of conduct by inflating a site's revenue through apparently plagiarising content.